One possibility for those hating the SMCL format (isn't it just like
writing manually in any other markup?)

We could probably have a healthy debate on whether SMCL is more or
less difficult to learn (and to use) than other markup languages.
Personally, I do think some markup languages are easier than others,
but I'll admit that such preferences have a lot of subjectivity to
them. Regardless, however, it's probably the case that few people use
SMCL to do things other than writing Stata help files. Thus, there
would be an obvious advantage to being able to use a markup language
that one already uses for other purposes.

What does R do these days? They dynamically create HTML help files
and also have PDF files.

Those are written in Rd format, which is very similar to LaTeX. This
would be easy for those of us who already use LaTeX, but decidedly not
for those who don't. A markup language like reStructuredText (which I
mentioned in a previous post) has a learning curve that is less steep
than that for LaTeX (or so I would argue).